


Capitol Freaks

by catty_the_spy



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Gen, The Capitol, post-rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 08:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2102850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One last game, one last victory. One last chance for history to repeat itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Capitol Freaks

**Author's Note:**

> for the h/c bingo prompt “fighting”. This is probably terrible.

The Capitol Games continue despite President Coin’s assassination.

The reaping is televised throughout Panem. Announcers from Thirteen officiate, as Claudius Templesmith was dead and Caesar Flickerman was in a cell somewhere, being held until they needed him for the interviews.

When Katniss and Peeta came as tributes, the city was alive with noise and light, but now the only light comes from the tribute tower where the new government operates. The Capitol citizens are all filthy. (“No power, and no water,” Joanna whispers, using Annie’s head as a shield so the cameras can’t see. “Make them suffer like the rest of us.”)

District Two’s remaining Victors are absent. The last Katniss heard, they were protesting the Capitol Games, the reparations their District had to pay, their tesserae rations, and the armed guards from Thirteen on every street corner. (“I give you another month before they revolt,” Haymitch said when he heard the news. “They don’t want anything to do with your government, and I can’t say I blame them.”)

“For a hundred years, the thirteen districts of Panem have been oppressed by the Capitol. For seventy five, the Capitol has tortured us further with The Hunger Games. Now the tables have turned. Now we are in control. Now, we will have one last game, and one last victory. Starting today, we celebrate your defeat with the Capitol Games!”

Peeta clinches his fists. Katniss spares him a glance, hoping the sedatives worked. He hadn’t wanted to come; they’d had to promise him tranquilizers and several different types of medication just to get him on the train. Now he’s clearly grinding his teeth, struggling with either the reaping or the tracker-jacker venom.

There are twenty four bowls at the foot of the platform – twelve for the girls and twelve for the boys. There are peacekeepers everywhere.

Even filthy as they all are, many of the Capitol people have dressed up. It’s especially obvious when the first tribute – Medea Booth – comes to the platform. Half her braided hair is still bright orange, and there’s a large turquoise bow on the end. The beads on her dress make a waving cloud of light as she moves.

The next tribute – Florence Kiwerty – is quickly replaced by a volunteer. The woman who takes her place might be her mother. There’s a bit of a stir up top. Isn’t she too old?

One of the remaining tributes from One leans forward. “You never gave them an age range. In fact, you _already_ tampered with the range while you were gathering names. If she wants to die for this girl, let her die.”

So Amaris Kiwerty becomes a tribute instead. The crowd applauds her before the peacekeepers press in on them.

Girls in bright dresses are called in a steady stream. One or two are wearing dresses a few sizes too small or too large. (“Not everyone in the Capitol is rich,” Peeta said, trying to talk his way through a bad spot where his legs wouldn’t work for him. “It isn’t possible. Just like there are people who didn’t support the Games.”

“Then why didn’t they change it?” Katniss asked. “Why didn’t they do anything to stop it?”

“Why do you think it’s any safer for them to question the president? Do you think they won’t end up dead like everyone else?”)

The first boy reaped is seven years old.

They have to drag him from the crowd. At first his mother won’t let him go, but they beat her off so they can carry the boy to the platform.

“I volunteer,” a man shouts, stepping forward, but it’s hard to hear him over the screeching of the crowd. Much clearer than him are the people who are furious. Seven is too young, they scream, how many seven year olds are in there, how many kids even younger than that.

“I volunteer,” the man shouts again, climbing up the platform. The boy is dark skinned and the man is pale, so it’s doubtful that this is another parent stepping in for their child.

This must be what the victor from One meant, when she said they’d already tampered with the age range. (“I don’t see why they care what happened to my imaginary baby,” Katniss growled, tired of the questions and the tears and the stares.

“Pregnant women and twelve year olds,” Haymitch said with a laugh. He’s more than a little wasted. “They pick the funniest things to get upset about.”) They’d changed it so younger kids could get reaped, presumably to make a deeper impression on the Capitol citizens. How much younger was yet to be seen.

The volunteer pushes the little boy towards the stairs. A woman ducks out of the crowd to claim him – visibly old, but with heart shaped metal in her eyes. Not his mother, but there’s no sign of his mother. She might have been knocked unconscious when the peacekeepers hit her.

“Why didn’t they separate the kids from their parents to begin with?” Katniss asks.

The woman from thirteen continues as if there isn’t a riot building in front of her. The man is Octavius Adams.

“If they’d sorted the little kids earlier, there would’ve been trouble before now. Can’t have anyone spoiling the surprise.” Joanna tilts her head, thinking. “And they would probably have thought their kids would get blown up again.”

Peeta doesn’t say anything. When Katniss turns her head she can see Annie with her hands over her ears.

Eventually they get everyone beaten into submission. The rest of the tributes are aged fourteen and up.

Haymitch sighs. “Glad that’s over with.”

 

People were shipped in from the districts to watch the parade and the interviews. At the parade, the people from the Capitol cheer for their tributes, like this is a normal Games. It makes Katniss sick; didn’t these people care about anything?

The tributes hug each other and smile past the jeering from the Districts. Some of them wave. Amaris looks straight at a camera and mouths “I love you”. Octavius stands like a statue and nods solemnly at the people calling his name.

Politician, Katniss thinks. Or someone famous somehow.

These people…. They don’t seem to care that their own are going to die. It was bad enough they had to celebrate other people’s children going to their deaths; did they have to cheer at their own, too?

 

“I was going to design clothes,” says Hortencia, age fourteen. “I love clothes. Designers have to be from Eight now, since they make the fabric, so I don’t know what I’ll do now. If I live. Maybe just sell clothes. It’s not as good as designing them, but at least you get to be around clothes all day.”

“I was working in a restaurant, but what I really wanted to do was design arenas, for the Games.” This is Marcus, age seventeen. “I don’t care what these people think. They’re traitors to our nation. They deserved everything they got and worse. I hope they burn; I hope they suffer when they see what they are without the Capitol.”

“I was going to start Upper School, but we don’t have school anymore.” Amaryllis, age thirteen.

“I haven’t been able to maintain my arm,” says Adam, eighteen. He lifts up his left arm, which is a flesh colored prosthetic. “I think that puts me at a disadvantage. If it’d been able to keep up maintenance I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“I was a nurse,” Amaris says. “I was sympathetic to the districts at first – I’ve patched up a lot of victors, and I’ve helped piece together too many of the tribute’s bodies. I…. Not anymore. I’m not sympathetic anymore.”

Max, fifteen, is crying. Caesar can’t get any sense out of him.

Octavius gives Caesar a small smile. “Before the war, I lead a campaign to raise the minimum reaping age from twelve to fourteen. I couldn’t let a seven year old go through the very thing I’ve been trying to prevent. If twelve is too young, then seven is too young.” He looks out at the crowd, at the few Capitol spectators allowed in the back. The people from the districts are already booing him, but he doesn’t seem to care. “I want to thank you for helping our proposal get so close to the president’s desk. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

 

“District Two wants to be its own country,” Haymith announces, while they wait for the tributes to arrive at their arena. There’s been no training, and no mentors. It’s all happened in three days.

Part of Katniss thinks that isn’t quite fair, but it’s a very small part.

She and Peeta aren’t speaking.

“What?”

“District Two,” Haymitch repeats with patronizing slowness, “is rebelling. They’ve killed all of the peacekeepers from other districts and declared their independence. Our shiny new president wants to bomb them into oblivion.”

“Why?” Katniss says.

“Why not?” Haymitch shrugs. “They’ve got it almost as bad as these losers out here, and they way they see it, they didn’t ask to be included in that whole rebellion thing. If they don’t surrender, we’ll be down a district again. One’s probably going to join them.”

“But why leave,” Katniss protests. “What’s the point if they know they’re going to die?”

Haymitch gives her a strange look.

Outside her window, there’s smoke. Someone set a government building on fire. The people in the Capitol that aren’t rioting are gathered around the giant viewscreens, cheering and hooting until their voices give out, and picking up pots and pans and musical instruments so they could make more noise. Will they keep cheering through each death?

“They’re going to do another Games,” Haymitch says. He reeks. If Kantiss held a match too close, the air around him would burst into flame. “so they can punish them for rioting.”

Katniss turns away. Her stomach twists. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be; there’s only supposed to be one last game, one chance to make the Capitol freaks feel the same pain people in the Districts have endured for seventy five years. Just one, and then never again.

Katniss leans against the glass and makes herself listen to the cheering. They deserve this. They _deserve_ this.


End file.
